Report on Participating Special Exchange Programme at Kyoto University Pimolpun Sorikul,
Faculty of Economics, Thammasat University December 3, 2018 – February 1, 2019
Studying as an exchange student at Kyoto University was my first experience of studying abroad. This great opportunity gave me a chance to study and have new experiences at Kyoto, the former imperial capital of Japan.
As an exchange student, I have learned many ideas from people from different cultures. This experience also made me realize that studying abroad may help me to improve my research skills because I was able to learn a lot from this program which includes students from several countries. In addition, I found out what my strength and weakness are from this experience of studying aboard. Overall, this was a great starting point for me to improve myself. Moreover, studying at Kyoto give me an opportunity to both travel and study. This reminds me that work-life balance is an important thing for a good life and well-being. I had to manage my time as efficiently as I could in order to study and explore the great experience at Kyoto.
Kyoto University is a famous university and I feel this reputation is justified. The facilities at Kyoto University supported me to continue my research. The thing that I liked the most is the main library at the main campus.
The staff there are very generous with their time and patient. Not only did they help me to find the books that I was looking for, but also recommend other books related to my research interests. This helped me a lot to find new ideas from the books. Moreover, the WIFI network on campus was another thing that helped me to further my research because Kyoto university, a large international university, has access to several top international electronic journals and e-book. I was able to access international electronic journals and e-books to find various useful academic papers that I cannot access in my own country. This was a great opportunity for me to learn new ideas from these papers. In addition, the high-speed internet makes it easy and quick for me to search and reach the website while we are studying so as to find ideas and information as we discuss them in classes. I like the environment in Kyoto university which is really supportive of learning. You can see that a lot of students come to sit in to the library for various purposes. Some of students come to study in a silent area, some students come to discuss. Most importantly I was impressed with how easy it was to make friends, as I now have a lot of friends from the classes. They provided support and help to me on several occasions. I really enjoyed these moments.
As a short-term exchange student on the International Graduate Program for East Asia Sustainable Economic Development Studies, I learned a lot about development economics, especially in terms of sustainable development. I took four courses over these two months. These were qualitative research methods, international development assistance policy, cross-cultural management, and field research in Japan A. To me, these four classes inspired me in many ways and I received a lot of ideas from these four courses. The international development assistance policy class helped me understand more deeply about sustainable development because I could learn the mechanisms by which development policy is implemented from three sectors: the government sector, private sector and ODE. I also learned a lot about the process by which development projects are conducted and the reasons for international development assistant policy. In addition, the cross-cultural management class helped me to understand different cultures and learn how to manage under different cultural
circumstances. In the qualitative research method class, I learned how to adapt qualitative research methods to conduct my thesis, the part on analyzing data was especially useful. In my original research plan I used quantitative methods heavily. After taking this class, I realized that my topic is about making a decision. Thus, I need to understand the reason why individuals make their choices. The qualitative research method course helped me to analyze statistical data to find the reason why people make different decisions. For field research in Japan A, I visited Kyoto Makers Garage (KMG), Keihanna Innovation Center (KICK), Tea ceremony at "Takumi no Yakata", and Byodoin Temple. This was a good opportunity for me to explore Kyoto’s innovation culture.
After joining this exchange program, I am even more sure that I want to work as a researcher. I learned a lot about how to conduct research efficiently as well as some useful methodology. I am sure that I will use these helpful skills in my work as a researcher from now on. Moreover, this great experience at Kyoto University has improved my skills to communicate and work with different people since I have learned how to deal with people from different cultures, especially from the qualitative research methods and cross-cultural management courses.
Overall, it was more than just a learning experience. Of course I learned several new things, but this exchange also allowed me to explore the world in different way. It was a great pleasure to be an exchange student on this program. I hope that I will have another chance to come here again.
